Dr. Kristen Welker-Hood is a nurse and environmental health scientist and directs the Environment and Health Program for Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in Washington DC. She previously served as Senior Policy Fellow in the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health of the American Nurses Association. She holds a BS in Nursing from the State University of New York in Binghamton NY, an MS in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore MD and received her Doctorate in Environmental Health Science from Boston University, School of Public Health, Boston, MA (2005). She is a principle author of the new PSR report "Coal's Assault on Human Health," a study that utilizes a medical model to examine the impacts of coal on the human body.